The art known as "orientalist", offers us an idealized, romantic and sensual vision of the East built from Europe, which became an established theme during the nineteenth century. Countless painters represented all sorts of scenes set in Arab countries of North Africa, and also the Middle and Far East.

In landscapes and interiors the exotic contrasts between the dazzling light of the desert and the dark interiors, the exuberant colors of the clothes and the seduction of the flesh, especially in the scenes of baths and harems, were highlighted. When Ingres painted a colorful view of a Turkish bath, he succeeded in making this eroticized vision of the East acceptable to the general public.

In this thematic section I will collect samples of the most remarkable orientalism in painting.

Edwin Lord Weeks was an American artist born in 1849 in Boston, Massachusetts.

His parents were affluent spice and tea merchants from Newton, a suburb of Boston, and as such they were able to finance their son's youthful interest in painting and travelling. As a young man Weeks visited the Florida Keys to draw, and also travelled to Surinam in South America. His earliest known paintings date from 1867 when he was eighteen years old, although it is not until his Landscape with Blue Heron, dated 1871 and painted in the Everglades, that Weeks started to exhibit a dexterity of technique and eye for composition—presumably having taken professional tuition.

In 1872 Weeks relocated to Paris, becoming a pupil of Léon Bonnat and Jean-Léon Gérôme.

After his studies in Paris, Weeks emerged as one of America's major painters of Orientalist subjects. Throughout his adult life he was an inveterate traveler and journeyed to South America (1869), Egypt and Persia (1870), Morocco (frequently between 1872 and 1878), and India (1882–83).

In 1895 Weeks wrote and illustrated a book of travels, From the Black Sea through Persia and India, and in 1897 he published Episodes of Mountaineering.

He's s the son of the painter Jan Styka who gives him his first lessons in drawing and painting and which influences his style.

Adam Styka continued his studies at the famous Jesuit college in Chyrow. He studied in Paris at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1908 to 1912. In addition, he attended a military training in Fontainebleau. The outbreak of the First World War surprised him in Paris. He enlisted in the French Army in artillery and distinguished himself in battle while being wounded. In addition to French citizenship, he received the national order of Merit.

He made several trips to North Africa, Tunisia and Algeria where he was interested in orientalism. It was a fertile period in subjects: the landscapes of these regions and the portraits of Arabs, Berbers and orientalist genre scenes. His palette became radiant under the sun of North Africa. He is nicknamed "the Painter of the Sun". Subsequently, Styka stayed in Morocco and Egypt. He left France in the 1950s to settle in Pennsylvania. It often took as a theme the life of cowboys.

At the end of his life, he was interested in religious themes as his father did. Many of his canvases are found in churches in Europe and North America.

He exhibited in Paris (notably at the Galerie Gérard frères in the Rue de la Boëtie), the Paris Salon, etc. Also in Europe and the United States.

Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French academic painter and sculptor born in 1824, in whose production we can find works of historical, mythological, orientalist subjects, portraits and others, bringing the traditional Academicism to an artistic climax.

Anders Leonard Zorn was a Swedish impressionist painter, sculptor and printamker born in Mora, Dalarna, in 1860. He died in 1920.

We have already seen some of his work in a monographic post, and another one with a selection of his pictures with dogs. Here you have his orientalist works, which although they are not the bulk of his production, do stand out for their usual quality and good taste, both in oil and watercolor.

Ferdinand Max Bredt was a German Orientalist painter born in 1860 in Leipzig.

Also known as F. M. Bredt because of that signature on his work, he is regarded as one of Germany's leading Orientalist painters. Bredt was originally trained as a book dealer. Tranisitioning to art, he studied first at the School of Art in Stuttgart, Germany, before continuing his studies in Munich, under Wilhelm Lindenschmit (the Younger). Bredt travelled extensively during his life, taking voyages to Greece, Italy, Turkey and Tunisia, producing an extensive body of work in oil and watercolor.

Bredt predominantly uses female subjects that he places in exotic locations, interiors, and courtyard. He was fascinated with Oriental architecture; he built his house and studio in Ruhpolding, Germany in an Arabian style.

The work of Ferdinand Max Bredt was exhibited in Paris, Berlin, Chicago and London. Today he is little-known, but he was widely recognized in his lifetime for his works. Two of his paintings were chosen to represent his native Germany at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

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